


Five Times Life Was Like a Song (And One Time There Were No Words At All)

by Sanguineheroine



Category: House MD
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 13:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1859712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanguineheroine/pseuds/Sanguineheroine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Before I even touched you, this was the best relationship I’ve ever had.  It’s outlasted three marriages, a dozen jobs and four interstate moves.  You’re the only person I’ve ever been faithful to.  Why should that change now?” </p><p>Five musical moments and one minute of silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Life Was Like a Song (And One Time There Were No Words At All)

__  
**“He who seeks finds, and who knocks will be let in”**   


 

House manages to look surprised when he opens the door, although Wilson can’t imagine who else he might have been expecting at this hour.

Then again, thought Wilson, House had no good reason to expect _him_ at this hour but there he was, stepping aside with a slight incline of his head (which in House’s peculiar language was as good as welcoming embrace) to let Wilson inside.

Wilson left his suitcase where it fell and dropped onto the couch, suddenly exhausted and feeling every bit as drunk as he should have after nine shots of whiskey and nine beer chasers. House held up a bottle of Jack Daniels with a questioning expression, and it was all Wilson could do just to shake his head. Moments later, he heard the thump of House’s cane disappear into the kitchen followed by the hiss and gurgle of the percolator.

The coffee, when it arrived, was strong and black (Wilson had long given up expecting milk) and so sweet that even his seasoned teeth objected. Wilson drank it slowly, anticipating an interrogation but shockingly House managed to hold his tongue until the mug was resting empty on the side table.

“So.” House leaned back in his chair, coming alarmingly close to spilling his still-full mug. “You told her?”

“What was I supposed to do?” Wilson muttered without even bothering to open his eyes. They’d played this scene before.

“You could try, I don’t know-“ House hemmed and hawed for a moment, seemingly carefully considering his next words “ _not_ telling her.”

Wilson groaned and hoped that maybe just this once House would take pity on him and let him die drunk and in peace. Cracking open an eye, he saw that House was still watching him expectantly.

“If I didn’t tell her, you and I wouldn’t be here now and you wouldn’t be right. And then how would the Earth continue to turn?”

“Good point.” House acknowledged with a grim smile, rising slowly from the arm chair. “And good night.”

“Good night, House.” Wilson called toward the sound of bare, shuffling feet.

* * *

_**“We might kiss when we’re alone”** _

 

Their first kiss was nothing like what Wilson would have expected, if he’d ever thought to expect it.

It was slow and gentle and hesitant, completely unlike House in every respect except that it was (as all things he did) executed with exceptional skill and under completely inappropriate circumstances. There was, Wilson thought to himself, a time and a place for unexpected kisses and Exam One at two o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon was hardly it.

“You kissed me.” Wilson was proud of how steady he sounded, and how he _almost_ didn’t sound like an infatuated teenage girl.

“And since it’s done such wonders for your IQ,” House growled, his body deliberately loose and casual but with eyes wide open and watching Wilson’s reactions “I’m going to do it again.”

Their second kiss was also nothing like Wilson expected, based on previous experience. It was firm and demanding and tasted like cherry lollypops and, oddly, biro ink. It also became less skilful with each second that passed, but Wilson believed this to be directly related to an abrupt redirection in House’s circulatory system.

A distant part of his mind seemed rattled by that observation, until his own circulatory system deviated and the rest of his mind became equally as distant.

Upon reflection, Wilson came to believe that Exam One at ten after two on a Tuesday afternoon was the perfect time for a second, only-slightly-more-expected kiss.

* * *

_**“And I have been missing the rapture [of being forever incomplete]”** _

 

If someone had told him, just two weeks (two weeks, one day, three hours and eighteen minutes ago) that he would find watching House steal fries from his plate unbearably arousing, he would have cheerfully paid their therapist’s bill.

“How am I supposed to eat like this? It’s obscene, is what it is.” Wilson dropped his cutlery with a sigh and pushed his plate towards House.

“Something wrong with your lunch, Wilson?” House dropped the last French fry into his mouth and licked the salt slowly from his fingers, taking note of the exact moment when Wilson’s blush spread from his cheeks down to his neck. Wilson shifted in his seat, discomforted by House’s decidedly lecherous scrutiny.

Two weeks, one day and four hours later exactly, Wilson slipped flushed and dishevelled from the second floor storage room and hoped fervently that no-one would remember that he started out the day in a jacket and tie.

Two weeks, two days, two hours and fifteen minutes after their first kiss, House smiled wickedly at Wilson across the cafeteria.

“Long lunch today?” he called out as he approached. Wilson blushed furiously, but abandoned his tray and ducked out of the queue.

“Some _home cooking_ perhaps?” House muttered to him as they pushed open the front doors.

To Wilson’s credit, he managed to wait until they were out of the car park before opening House’s fly.

* * *

_**“Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you?”** _

 

Wilson practised for hours; in the bathroom mirror, in the car, alone in his office.

When they lay side-by-side in the dark, out of breath and slick with sweat, Wilson closed his eyes and licked his lips.

“House, I-“he fidgeted nervously with the pillow, smoothing and re-folding the edges for long silent minutes. He cleared his throat and tries again.

“ _Greg_.” His voice was hoarse, almost unrecognisable. House turned to face him in a rustle of sheets, his body shadowed and his eyes invisible against the dim light from the window.

“Jimmy, you don’t have to-“ Wilson heard his resignation, his disappointment.

“I know I don’t _have_ to. I _want_ to. I want you to know.” His voice was clearer now, determined.

“I already know.” House shifted closer, wrapping long fingers around the back of Wilson’s head and drawing him in until their noses touched. “Do we have to make a big deal out of it?”

“I guess not.” Wilson sighed and lets his eyes drift closed. Long minutes later, on the edge of sleep, he heard House mutter

“I hope _you_ know, Jimmy.” Wilson was never sure whether his sleepy nod was understood.

He hoped it was.

* * *

_**“You, who is so good with words and at keeping things vague”** _

 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Wilson paced, hands pushed firmly into his pockets. House had told him time and again that his hands were his most obvious tell.

“You know what? I don’t think I even need to ask. You-” and here Wilson stopped pacing and faced House straight on, deliberately forcing eye contact “You don’t want this anymore, and instead of talking about it like an adult, you just thought you’d put on this act and I’d take the hint.”

House opened his mouth to interject, but Wilson wasn’t finished.

“Well, message received and understood. You don’t want my friendship, and you don’t want our relationship, and that means that I’m no longer interested in what you _do_ want.”

House watched him walk to the closet and pull down his suitcase, flip it open on the bed and begin to throw in shirts in a very haphazard and un-Wilson like manner.

“If I thought we had a relationship, I might also have thought before throwing it away.” House’s voice was hard, so completely not the conciliatory tone that Wilson had expected that he stopped not folding shirts and looked up.

“You,” House continued “have ruined every relationship you’ve ever had. This was very _not_ ruinous, and so clearly _not_ a relationship.” He tilted his chin up, blazing eyes daring Wilson to disagree.

Wilson’s breath caught in his throat and his knees threatened to buckle so to save face he sat down instead, landing awkwardly between his suitcase and House’s right leg.

“Let me get this straight. You think that because what we had was _good_ , that it clearly isn’t a relationship and not worth saving. You _idiot_.”

House looked like he might interrupt, so Wilson hurried to finish before he lost his nerve for good.

“Before I even touched you, this was the best relationship I’ve ever had. It’s outlasted three marriages, a dozen jobs and four interstate moves. You’re the only person I’ve ever been faithful to. Why should that change now?” He dropped his eyes to the quilt and added softly

“So call it what you want, House. But _I_ don’t think we should call it ‘over’”.

House looked at Wilson searchingly, as if seeing him for the first time.

“No, Jimmy. I think we should call it what _you_ want.”

* * *

_**“.......”** _

 

The hospital chapel was full, a sea of black spilling over from the neat levy of pews and into the aisles and even out of the door. Wilson knew that if he turned his head he would see them all looking, watching for a moment of weakness where they might slip inside his guard and hear a careless recollection or a murmured endearment.

For just this reason he had gathered his memories to him, counted each one as a priceless jewel to be stowed away and never again shared with a twist of a lip or a bright flash of blue eyes.

Wilson thought maybe, just maybe if he doesn’t talk about it then it wouldn’t ever be real. Death would remain as a spectre, an idea whose grim reality need never intrude upon his own. To this end he remained as still and silent as the body that had only that morning slid into the furnace, speaking to no-one and hearing no words.

He was vaguely aware of Cuddy’s fierce presence beside him, blazing a path through the crowd. Wilson basked a little in her heat, pressed in tight next to him in the back seat of the cab but when they stumbled through the door together there was no ghostly shivering welcome in the piano strings and their breath didn’t echo back to him from the bedroom walls so he sent her away.

Wilson wandered through the apartment flipping switches just to marvel at the soundless blender, soundless television and to feel the air pulse around the speakers with no answering rhythm across his eardrum. When he tired of that, he sat on their bed in the dark with a stethoscope and listened to the silence where his heartbeat used to be.

 

 

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Songs quoted (in order from top to bottom) were:
> 
> (Are You The One) That I’ve Been Waiting For? – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds  
>  Delicate – Damien Rice  
>  Incomplete – Alanis Morisette  
>  Just Like Heaven – The Watson Twins [original recording: The Cure]  
>  Diamonds & Rust – Joan Baez [original recording: Bob Dylan]


End file.
